Letters in the Sand
by Nanashi Tsurunaji
Summary: Heero can't sleep, too many things are weighing on his mind. Find out what bothers the Perfect Soldier, and why. Shonenaiboy's love12, angst in a hopeful sense, only to be two chapters long. Oh, and I don't own Gundam Wing. I wish I did. !COMPLETE!
1. In the Sand

Letters in the Sand

By Nanashi Tsurunaji

Warnings: Shonen-ai (literally, boy's love), angst (-ish), Heero POV, MAJOR fluffage at the end, um, I think that's it. If ya'll find any more, tell me, and I'll change these stupid things.

Pairings: 1+2

* * *

It's midnight here, but something keeps niggling at the back of my mind. Something that just won't leave me alone. I have, after all, been ignoring it for quite some time now, a little under a year now. Nothing seems to get it off my mind, so at 12:03 in the morning, I haul my heavy mind and heart out of bed and down to the beach for some quite time I can't get here, even if the only other person in the room is dead asleep.

Ever since I can remember, I have liked writing. Just don't tell the other guy, please? Any way, embarrassment aside, there is the fact that books can be lost and computers can be hacked. But here is a quiet place for me to write my thoughts. Down in the sand, where anything I write will be erased by little a little time. I pick up a stick, and hover over the silent sand. This will be the hardest part. How do I put down in words what I can barely explain to myself?

My hand moves of its own accord, flicking the stick over the top of the sand, not writing just yet. Thoughts flicker under the tip hovering half an inch off the ground, each one as alien as the next. Maybe I should think this through a little bit. After all, my roommate won't care if I come in late. He'll just tease me about sneaking off after lights out to see a certain princess. I know she is infatuated with me, but that does NOT mean that I love her. Holy hell, I hardly know what the word means! And there are so many different types of love!

Maybe that's where I should start. Relena has made it her mission to teach me how to love, but it has no logic. There is the love between parents and children, friends, family, neighbors. She wants me to know all this and show it to everyone. Yet, I don't grasp the meaning, yet. If I love anyone as a parent, it would be Dr. J. He has raised me as best as he knew how, taught me all I know, cared for me when I was in trouble (and I was in trouble more often than not. What? If you give a seven-year-old a machine of mass destruction to pilot, the results aren't going to be perfect). I think the only friends I have are the other Gundam pilots and Relena. I do not know any body else. Likewise, I've never had a neighbor that I wasn't trying to kill, until _he_ showed up.

How annoying can one boy be? Of course, I'm referring to the same guy who is probably waiting for me in the dorm room with an uncouth comment on the princess of Sanq's upper torso. The same man who was, most likely, as oblivious to me as he was tormenting. That would be one Duo Maxwell. He runs, he hides, but he never tells a lie. That's Duo in a nutshell. He tells us that himself. When I know the basic schematics of how he operates, how can I be so lost when my mind turns to him. When I know so little about him, how can I figure him into the equation for love?

How can one who kills so many love, in any case? To my mind, love is reserved for the lovers, not the killers. As long as I remember I have been intimate with death. My own has always been with held. Maybe that is what he wants. I think Death has some grand plan for me. That's how I keep going. Even the Shinigami I know seems to be herding me at times into some grand master plan. If that's the case, I'll go along. Most likely it will lead to better understanding.

The twig keeps flickering over the sand, not touching. Like how I flutter around him. I never felt like that for anyone else. Like seeing him would numb the pain for a little while. Like if I touched him, I would go up in a burst of flames. I so badly wanted to burn, too. When he trails little flames over me when he brushes against me in a hall or as a friendly gesture, I want it. Is that the same as love? I don't know. I don't really think I can know yet.

I touch the stick firmly to the sand, and flick it around and down, left to right, three English words that would clear my mind for a moment. I dropped the stick like an underscore of the words my soul produced. There was no connection between any of them, but they were the same things I thought when I came out here where no one else could see. My feet take me back to where I can rest in peace, where no thoughts of Relena or Duo can deter me from my mission until I feel the need to burn again. I hope the next time will be as vague as this.

* * *

Duo Maxwell sat in the shadows, watching Heero Yuy flick a stick at a sand dune until he finally etched his warring thoughts in the sand. He stood and approached the lines his roommate had drawn. Stood in the same place that Heero had for over half an hour, and looked over the words that could only be from the hands of Heero.

There was nothing to be done about them, except for watch the writer very closely. There was something more to the mysterious half-Japanese youth than just the mission. Something deeper that caused him to write strange letters in the sand to people who would never read them. Duo scrutinized the words very carefully, looking for even the slightest shaking in that meticulous handwriting to indicate what was said wasn't meant. There was nothing he could find. He, too, left the shore of the white sanded beach, lit by the crescent moon, to see the man who etched words in the sand. He would pretend to be the same as always, pretend that he had never read the words on the beach, but there could be no erasing what was now etched into his heart.

* * *

And the soft moonlight laughed at the two men who saw the same words and saw two different messages. While one saw only the pain in each carefully written letter, each punctuation mark, and the other only saw hope. Hope and pain. That is what was on the sand that no one else was around to read.

Love? Death. Burn!

Those words, of hope or destruction, were the only testament to their passage. But even as I speak, the sands of time turn and the eastern wind shifts. The words of the soul wash away in one swift swell of an ocean wave.


	2. Pesticide Suicide

Letters in the Sand

By Nanashi Tsurunaji

Warnings: Same as the first chapter… (Duh…)

Pairings: 12 (this time around! YAY!)

Chapter Two:

* * *

Heero's POV 

Duo has been watching me since last night. It's very unnerving. Every time I look up, there he is, watching me. Even now, he's watching me prepare breakfast. He has been very…careful around me lately, starting with flicks of concern tossed my way for an offhanded comment and running down to this. I can't get my mind around it. The only other person who acts even remotely similar is Relena, and she says that she can't take her eyes off me because she loves me. Does that mean Duo's in love with me? I wish I knew. I need to journal. Badly. These thoughts just seem to get jumbled up, dog-piling each other until I can't think right unless I do. I wonder if I can just trace the words out on the counter as I think…

Let's start with Duo's possible feelings for me. Seems likely, since I have no clue what feelings are, exactly. Relena's descriptions tend to be a little…strange. How can one feel hot and cold at the same time? Moving right along…Duo can either be in love with me or in hate with me. I've seen it before, men watching each other on the battlefield, cautious of the next move. I don't think that's it. We are, for lack of a better word, comrades. Unless OZ has told him about some of the darker things I've done, and I don't know about it. That would be about the right speed for them. Poison us against each other. But that doesn't explain the concern that flashed through his eyes lately. The only other possibility I can think of is love. However, that is because Relena watches me all the time, too. She never has felt concern for my well being before. She only wants me to protect her. Which is fine. She's a good diplomat for someone our age. Duo, however, cares about me. I can see it, occasionally, when he looks at me sharply. That may be because of my answers to some of his odd questions. I really don't think he was pleased when I told him my life was cheap. That, of course, was judging from how hard he punched me (I didn't know he could wind me like that, or I would have taken precautionary measures) and how fast he ran once he did. Let this be said for Duo Maxwell. He is one hell of a fast runner. What, thought, has changed about me or him that has made him watch me like a hawk? My answer is to try and find a logical answer, starting with the events of yesterday afternoon.

I had returned home from a rather tiring mission, and Duo wasn't back yet. The others were still at the last safe house by the beach, while Duo and I had been sent ahead to secure this one in a forested area. The new safe house is very secure, unless you count the creatures that come in via one smashed window in the living room. This was my first time in this particular safe house, and I was displeased to find that Duo, who came in a day ahead of me, hadn't secured the window. Given he HAD secured the perimeter as well as fifty extra yards that weren't specified, but the window was still annoying. I had no desire to be woken in the night by a deer in my bed1. Especially not if I had one of those 'wet dreams' Duo told me about. Well, actually, Duo wasn't the first person to tell me about them, he was just…ah, a bit more colorful than the texts that J gave me to read. And, yes, before you ask, I have had a few. I am not, contrary to popular belief, a mindless, sexless, killing droid. Any way, I sealed up the window and started to clean up the mess, with much sneezing when the dust got too bad. I had all the leaves shoveled out the door, and was starting to clean up the couch, when one of Duo's switchblades caught my eye. It was a bad idea to leave weapons lying around where anyone could find them and use them against you, so I picked it up to give to Duo (along with a stern lecture to keep it with him) and tucked it away. I could hear Duo coming up the steps. Suddenly, something jumped onto my wrist. I didn't even think, I just grabbed Duo's switchblade, and was going to attack the what-ever-it-was. Three things happened simultaneously. Duo came in the door, the whatcha-diggy jumped off my wrist, and I brought the blade down on my arm. Duo took the knife away from me and bandaged me up with out a thought. I didn't dare embarrass myself by telling him what happened. It was pretty clear that I'd missed what I was aiming at. Ever since then, he's been watching me. It doesn't make sense.

But Duo's eyes on me makes me feel all tingly inside. Like when I'm flying in Wing, only I'm still on the ground. His touches yesterday felt nice, and I was really starting to miss his talking. He hasn't said a word since yesterday. I wish I knew why…

* * *

Duo's POV 

How can he DO that! Every time he bends his wrist, I want to scream in agony. The others are going to be here soon, and I don't really want to be the one to tell them that Heero's gone all suicidal again… For once, I'm really GLAD I was spying on him when he wrote that shit in the sand about love being non-existent, death being there, and wanting to burn himself. God! If I hadn't gotten there in time yesterday… But why worry about that. I got here, Heero's safe, and the guys are going to help me get Heero over this hurdle. Everything's gonna be fine. Right. Sure. Keep telling yourself that, Maxwell, cause you know it's not true! Heero tried to commit suicide yesterday! How can everything be all right when one of us is TRYING to die? And he happens to be the one that is slowly taking over my mind… It's driving me NUTS! I wish I knew how he could keep such a calm face on when he CLEARLY tried to kill himself yesterday!

It was horrible. I come back from my mission, and I see Wing. No biggie, right? Heero was supposed to be here. So I approach the house, careful of the sensors I set up. It wouldn't be a good idea to trip one of my own wires, would it? I got to the house and found what I named the 'escape window' for its lack of pane all boarded up. Round the front of the house, there's a barricade of leaves on the steps leading up to the house! Why would Heero want that much privacy? Any way. I went ahead and bounded up the steps, and opened the door, prepared to tease Heero about making it that much harder to enter the house, when I saw him plunge a blade into his arm. Not just any blade, mind you, but one of my FAVORITE switchblades! I wanted to scream and yell at him, make him see how stupid he was. But, instead, I calmly bandaged him up. I let him have the bed upstairs, and slept on the floor. You see, the couch is full of mice…

Don't ask me why I feel all protective of him. I don't want to answer that yet. I don't want to think about how close I…we were to loosing him. I don't think I want to think. But since I can't say what I want to say to him, I've gotta say it to me. I'm just not the listener that Heero is. At least when he's not threatening me with death. Or trying to KILL himself. No, I'm not feeling worried about him at all… I'm beginning to think he did this on purpose to make me worry about him. How can I not worry about him…Ever since those dreams started…

HEY! Don't look at me like that! They aren't THOSE kinds of dreams! (Though there have been a few of them…) I meant this reoccurring dream I have of Heero falling out of the sea and into my arms. It's really odd, though. I'm standing on the beach and Heero's swimming in this clear ocean above my head, then suddenly, he launches himself out of the water like some kind of fish, and flings himself at me. He calls for me, telling me that he trust me to catch him, so I pull out this big fish net, and he misses that thing by a mile, and falls right into my arms. From there, it gets even weirder. Heero Yuy, the soldier boy of Rellie-poo's dreams (and mine, too, apparently…), hugs me and thanks me, then turns into a dragon-fish-thing and swims away in the air between me and the water above our heads. I start chasing him, and he leads me to some big Arabian palace, and Quatre comes out leading Trowa and Wufei on a single leash while both of them are wearing dog suits. Quatre asks me if I would like to drink some arsenic with the Queen of the Universe and her poodle (who happens to be Trieze…) while Trowa and Wufei mewl like kittens. Like I said, weird.

I feel like I've gotten off topic. What was I thinking, again? Oh, yeah. The suicidal prick that is now CALMLY buttering his toast. I just want to slap that guy! How can he act so…so nonchalant about this when he almost friggin' KILLED himself!

End POV

* * *

Heero gave Duo the strongest glare he could think up, and pointed his butter knife at the longhaired boy. 

"Why are you watching me?" He asked in his 'interrogation' voice. To him, the entire world was a battlefield. Duo's eyes just about bugged out of his head.

"Why? WHY! You have the FUCKING BALLS to ask me why! My GOD, Yuy! Can you even be that dense!" Duo started, but Heero glared him silent.

"Yes, why. You've been watching me for weeks now, but since yesterday you've been staring at me like I'm a china doll." Heero said, his voice very calm. Mentally, he applauded himself. The feelings he had for Duo made him want to scream back, or just brush away the strand of hair that escaped his braid today. Duo spluttered about for a bit in rage, before collecting himself.

"I come home to find you committing SUICIDE, Heero! How the hell do you want me to act?" Duo screamed back at the man. How could he take this so calmly…?

Heero looked shocked of so many levels, before comprehension dawned on him. He laughed. Heero Yuy, Mr. Stonefaced Soldier, laughed until tears leaked out of his eyes. Suicide? Duo looked mutinous again, so, with iron control, he canned his laughter for later.

"Suicide, Duo?" He said, laughter still evident in his voice as he wiped away his tears. "Something jumped on my arm while I was cleaning the couch. I was trying to get it off me." Heero studied his arm for a moment. "Besides, the angle is wrong. It wouldn't kill, just bleed a bit." Duo's face became a mask of shock as well, before he started laughing.

"So it wasn't suicide, but PESTICIDE…" He got out between honest to god giggles. Heero pulled out his can of laughter and laughed right along with Duo. When the two of them stopped, they just looked at each other for a long moment. Heero reached out his hand and brushed away the lock of hair that had been bothering him. Duo caught his hand and held it for a few seconds. When he let go, both of them were blushing.

"Duo?" Heero asked.

"Yeah?"

"What's love?"

"Well, love is like this feeling that no matter what happens, you always want to be with the person. Sure there's sex in the mix, but that's not all of it. I guess you could say that the person you love is the person you wouldn't mind spending the rest of your life with." Duo explained in his longwinded nature.

"Oh. That makes more sense than how Relena put it." Heero said with a shyness about him. They both fell silent again.

"Duo?"

"Yeah?"

"Would you mind if I loved you?"

"Not at all."

"Good."

* * *

When the other three pilots came home in the late afternoon, they found the two they sent ahead lying on the newly cleaned couch, asleep in each other's arms. 

"Should we wake them?" Asked Wufei in a hushed tone. Trowa shook his head.

"This is the happiest either of them has been for a while. Let's not ruin that." Quatre whispered back. The other three snuck up the steps to the second story to find the rooms they wanted, while the two boys slept, oblivious, below.

* * *

A/N: So, what do you think? How did it go? Tell me, cause I'd like to know. (No flames, please, cause that'd just make me hide under the bed for a few years…Yes, I'm not afraid to say that I don't like flamers, and that they scare me…) 

1 This happened to my dad when he was out in the woods. The deer got in through the door, however. Someone (coughUncleJcough) left the door open when he went out to … ah, relieve himself.


End file.
